Two Va. Beach Men Face Fraud Charges Over Unfinished Work

YORK — A York County resident is out more than $35,000 from an incomplete home addition.

An unfinished home addition in York County has a local resident out more than $35,000 and two Virginia Beach men facing fraud charges, police said.

York County investigators charged Christopher Probst, 32, and Cameron Sawtelle, 30, with construction fraud, said Capt. Frank Crotty of the York-Poquoson Sheriff's Office.

A Seaford-area homeowner signed a contract in July with Fidelity Construction Inc. to have an addition built on a house on Middle Road in York County.

A check for a $500 down payment from the resident was written July 19 and cashed July 21, Crotty said.

On Aug. 9, the resident wrote two more checks to the construction business -- one for $5,000 and the other for $32,000, he said.

"Since that time, there has been no work performed," Crotty said.

Probst is president of Fidelity Construction, according to the company's contracting license. Crotty was unsure how Sawtelle might be affiliated with the business.

Probst turned himself in at the Virginia Peninsula Regional Jail on Oct. 10, after learning of the charges. Sawtelle, who had been incarcerated since Oct. 9 in Virginia Beach on unrelated charges, was transferred to the Virginia Peninsula Regional Jail this week.

Both are now free -- Probst on $40,000 bail and Sawtelle on $25,000 bail, jail officials said.

According to the Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation, Fidelity Construction's contracting license expired Sept. 30.

The department's records showed one open complaint investigation pending against the company.

Fidelity was fined $500 -- and its managers required to attend a contracting license class -- in June 2006, after the company used an unlicensed subcontractor on a remodeling job in Virginia Beach, according to an order issued by the state Board of Contractors.

No one returned messages left at the company's Virginia Beach office. *